The hit was clean, and the defenders obviously felt badly about it. The remarkable thing has been how that sentiment has spread.

Everybody is extending their thoughts and prayers, from NFL stars to NBA stars to PGA stars to rock stars to politicians to the Tennessee players who filed past a fallen Lattimore patting his shoulder pads.

The football public has witnessed countless injuries since Rutgers and Princeton first hooked up in 1869. It’s hard to recall one that affected so many people.

Football sociologists might one day look back and classify this as a historical marker. The Marcus Moment, perhaps, where social media and sympathy really met.

As big as Twitter may become, such moments will remain rare. First, because few injuries cause such gawking. Second, because players like Marcus are so rare.

Lattimore has as much running talent as any kid on earth, but the accompanying fame never seeped into his head. He visits schools, loves his mother, always credits his offensive line and treats everyone respectfully.

He looked like the old Marcus on Saturday when he burst for a 28-yard score in the first half. It was his 41st touchdown at South Carolina in about two full years of football work.

It all ended on a 2-yard gain in the third quarter. The stock question now is, why? The answer is Lattimore plays football, and brutal things happen.

But why do they continually happen to him? Why was he the one who groggily peered at his pretzeled knee and reached down as if to try to fix it Saturday?

“It was the look in his eyes when he was on the ground,” South Carolina receiver Ace Sanders said. “He was really heartbroken about the injury. We were just trying to keep him strong.”

They were soon joined by 68,585 people on Facebook. That’s how many “likes” the Pray for Marcus Lattimore page received from Saturday night to Monday afternoon.

Twitter wishes came in from LeBron James, Dustin Johnson, Robert Griffin III, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish. Amid the locker room hoopla after beating Florida, Georgia coach Mark Richt said his team thought about Lattimore.

“We all know how an injury like this is just very difficult to deal with,” Richt said, “so we wanted to pray for him and his family.”

Inevitably, people invoked the Joe Moment. Joe Theismann was a great quarterback. But the first, second and third things everyone remembers are his shin snapping like a chicken bone on Monday Night Football in 1985.

That was long before you could sit at your computer and watch the play until your stomach yelled, “No mas!” Theismann never played again. Hopefully, what Lattimore told players in a team meeting Friday night was mere coincidence.

McGahee went from a being a top-five pick to limbo. He sat out a season but has had a hearty nine-year NFL career. Maybe Lattimore heard the announcers talking about it during Sunday night’s Denver-New Orleans game.

South Carolina’s student government was busy Monday organizing a rally for Lattimore at 5 p.m. The school president and Steve Spurrier were planning to attend. There would be cards for people to sign.

Maybe there will be Marcus Moment of silence, then they’ll probably sing “Happy Birthday.” In a hospital room not far away, somebody might wheel in a cake with 21 candles.

You know what Lattimore will wish for; at least he knows everybody wants it to come true.